Custom Pet Portrait Painting in a Hurry, Little White Dog Oil PaintingCustom Pet, or How to Build a Crate for Art

Custom Pet Portrait Oil Painting, Little White Dog, 16" x 20" on Canvas

"Can you paint a portrait of our dog and have it here in Texas in time for Christmas?"

That's the question I got a few weeks before Christmas.

"Please!!! We'll pay extra for shipping!"

Well, hmmmm.  My problem of course was time.  The cute doggy was a perfect subject!  My husband assured me that he would build a crate that would work with a still-wet painting.

So, I poured a cup of coffee, and started right in.  I had a ton of other commissions, so this was an overtime project, stay up late.  Well, I finished him up and then it was John's turn.

Here's what he did.  He nailed together a crate just a little larger with 1" x 4"s.  He added a strut to the back of the canvas, and drilled a hole in the middle slat of the crate.  He threaded wire around the strut and through the hole, tightened it up so that the painting would not shift a bit.  And then tacked over that masonite.  So the painting nestled with air all around, but unable to move, and no chance anything lighter than a garbage truck crashing on it would dent it.

Cardboard box cut from a Home Depot packing box, and lots of tape, and off the little fellow went.

He WAS wet when he arrived and his new owners and I had discussed what they had to do on their end!

When I'm painting custom pet portraits

Sarge, my art studio dog, totally bored while I paint a pet portrait!

Poor Sarge, as much as I love to paint custom pet portraits and houses, I look over at him and know he'd rather we be doing just about anything else!

I get so "immersed" in my painting that I literally lose track of time.

And all the while, waiting for a walk, or a snack or a toss of a toy, Sarge sits.

I like to say he's supervising, but you know, he's really not.  And from the expression on his face here, he knows it, too!

Signs of fall, a walk and a thought

Sarge my boxer dog on our daily walk

What are the signs of fall coming in the last weeks of August?  They are all around us as Sarge and I walk through our neighborhood on our daily "constitutional"!

Every sense is screaming change of seasons!  I hear the Canada geese flying overhead as they gather to go south.

Is that an apple pie I smell?

The tart and sweet tomatoes from our home garden.

The drier, cooler late summer breeze.

The late summer blossoms of the morning glories and dahlias.  But today we heard the absolute guarantee that summer is ending and fall is almost here:  The high school marching band!  I have to say, starting my day with a walk with Sarge is good for my artist's soul.  I think about what's on the easel and where I am and what's next.  But anyway...what signs of fall are you seeing in your neck of the woods?

Dogs on the Beach

Do dogs love the beach?  Oh, yeah.  Here's two cuties whose portrait I just finished.  When we travel with Sarge, our boxer, I check to find dog friendly beaches at Dogfriendly.  We found an awesome beach in St. Augustine that way.  We love Cocoa Beach and had planned on our roadtrip last fall to spend the night there but their anti-dog beach policies changed our minds.  Love me...love my dog, you know?

My own town is so anti-dog that it doesn't permit them in ANY area of ANY park in the whole town.  Dogs are an incredible way to introduce humans to others that would never have the occasion to meet and bond neighbors in a neighborhood.  But in my town, better for everyone to sit in their houses watching t.v. alone than venture onto a park bench to socialize with their best friends.  I guess.

Sarge does have "friends" who he visits on our long walks, he knows when he's approaching a fenced back yard with a dog and starts that "boxer wiggle"!

Anyway, for those artists out there wanting the details on the dog portrait:  8" x 10", prismacolor colored pencils on a tan Mi-Tientes pastel paper.  Matted out to 11 x 14".  I worked from about 10 photos...one was the pose but it was backlit with a setting sun so the faces were all but obscured.  I was fortunate that my client had a ton of photos, so I was able to get facial details and color details. 

By the way, if you are considering a custom portrait of a pet or a child for a Mother's Day gift, now's the time to put in the order!  I always have a waiting list and work in the order I receive them.  My custom pet portrait website is http://robinzebley.com, or order through my Etsy shop.

I hope you're able to take your dog to the parks near you and this summer to the dog friendly beaches!  These little guys prove how much dogs love an adventure outdoors!  Robin

Sarge the Boxer Puppy - Training at 8 months

Sarge the Boxer Puppy at 7 months with his brother Hoss

Sorry for the absence, I was super busy with portrait commissions this Christmas and beyond.  Etsy has proved to be a great showcase and I got a lot of commissions from them.

So how is Sarge?  He's now 8 months old, almost 57 lbs. and is doing great.  How did he do with potty training without a crate?  Fabulous. 

He has the run of the house and has done beautifully. I think it's important to have the run of the house because his natural instinct is to protect and guard.  How can you protect and guard if you can't get to it??

Anyway, we have been really lucky with the chewing, we haven't lost anything.  I corrected him with an "uh, uh" any time he mouthed anything inappropriate.  He gets a raw beef bone every day, and I think that takes care of his need to chew, and keeps him nicely occupied.  I also pushed a sturdy chair next to a window so he can watch the goings on outside, which keeps him from being bored while I'm working on my dog portraits.  And a long walk every day it's not icy out is good for both of us!

The big news for Sarge was that our son and daughter in law became puppy parents to his half brother, Hoss!  Hoss is a "black" boxer, which really means he is a very dark brown, where the brindle stripes actually cover all of the tan .  They have the same father.  Hoss is a few months younger than Sarge, and they bonded immediately.  Here they are playing, love that manic face dogs have when you snap a photo of them playing!  Hoss is a city dog, who has to be walked, and also was trained without a crate.  It IS possible!  Hoss's parents have outside jobs, and he spends significant time alone, but they built a custom gate to keep him in their kitchen, where he can look outdoors, and he's been a champ.  He was the last of his litter to go and his breeder had him housetrained without a crate before he came to his new home.  There's definitelly something to be said for getting an older pup!!!

So is Sarge perfect?  Yes!!  Ha, ha.  Actually, we are working on jumping on people.  It's soooooo hard, especially when people actually pat their chests and welcome him up!   He's doing better on it, but by no means can I report that he has good manners regarding jumping!

Memorial Portrait of Duncan, a standard poodle, victim of dog bloat

Here's a memorial portrait I did recently of Duncan, a standard poodle, who taught me about bloat in dogs.  I was able to capture Duncan frolicking on the beach, a perfectly healthy and happy fellow.  I love doing vacation fun photos with dogs, just like this!  This is in colored pencil on paper.  I loved doing the waves!  Duncan, himself, was taken from several photos.  I needed to get his colors right, and the photo of him frolicking on the beach was bathed in very warm sunlight, making him as orange as a pumpkin in some spots.  But I felt his family would prefer to see him more in his typical coloring!

I loved the wind in his wet fur, how he was laughing, and how his paws were caught midstep!  I angled out his leg just a bit.  The fourth is hidden by his right leg!  But his tail is high and wagging, full of fun!

And his eyes I had to get from other photos, I also angled the beach a little less horizontally.

Duncan was a young dog that died from canine bloat.  Large breeds are more likely than small guys to develop this quick killer that not much is known about.  Gulping lots dry food with lots of water and then vigorous exercise seems to be the cause, but there's no definite do's and don'ts besides feeding more than once a day, limiting water at mealtime, and not exercising immediately before or after eating.

If you have a large dog, please read up on this.  Our new pup, Sarge, is one of the breeds that is more likely to develop bloat, so I am thankful for the education.

And I'd like to thank Duncan's sweet humans for the honor of painting his memorial portrait in colored pencil.  I know it will give them comfort.  As much as I'm loving Sarge, I still miss my Otto, and having his portrait to look at makes me remember the happiness he brought us every day of his life.

Want to see more of my custom dog portraits?  I have them in my Etsy shop and lots more on my custom portraits site.  I'd love to work with you for a dog or pet or human portrait!  And it's the most meaningful gift you can give!  Thanks for stopping by!  Robin

New Puppy, Sarge! Our adventure in Crate free puppy housetraining!

Here's our new pup, Sarge, who we are training the old fashioned way, no crate.  Nothing like a puppy to take my mind off losing my best friend, Otto, a few weeks ago.  I NEEDED a dog, and we found a non-puppy mill breeder an hour or so away and selected Sarge for his inquisitive, friendly and laid back manner.  Actually, his whole litter was the same except the runt, who looked so much like Otto as a pup.  She was feisty as all get out, starting fights with everyone, and I just felt that a more laid back pup would fit with us better.

So Sarge left his nice Amish barn that he shared with his pack and several horses and came home with us.  His breeder is a pro, she'd been breeding dobies for years, and since she and her husband retired from farming, she decided to add another breed to her repetoir. 

So she aquired two new pets of her own, Sarge's mom and dad, and they produced 10 pups their first try!  We got Sarge nicely socialized, since her large extended family included grandkids of all ages who played with them, and cats and horses and men, like I said, she knows how to breed and raise good pups and it shows.

Sarge did smell like a barnyard, though, so he got a good bath his second day with us.  Looks like we could have waited, he loves this mudpuddle! 

Everything was new to Sarge, a real culture clash.  Car rides, t.v., radio, cell phones!   He loves a walk, but not the leash. 

My aim is to have him do his business on his twice daily walk.   First step, of course is to do it outside the house!  We do not own or plan to own a crate for him.  I know it's the current trend in dog training.  But dogs have been trained to behave in the house long before there were crates, and Sarge will be one of them, just like every dog I've had in my life.

I'll be honest with you.  I don't like crates.  If you do, that's your business but I think they are contrary to a dog's nature and when I hear of dogs who love their crates, it makes me cringe.  I hope Sarge's adventure in being socialized cage free will inspire others to learn how to do it.  There's very little info on raising a "free range" puppy on the internet, I notice.  Now, we do have a large kitchen and that's where Sarge will be kept when we have to leave him until he is trustworthy.  So it's like a giant cage, but he gets to play, look out the window, move all around and guard his little domain.

Of course, it takes a ton of time and attention.  I can't imagine doing it without taking at least a week of "maternity leave".  I admit I'm very very lucky that I work from home, being a pet portrait artist, but we were able to accomplish the same with our other beloved dogs, Gussie and Otto, when I worked full time.  We paper trained them first, but since Sarge was almost 12 weeks old, I figured we could move right to outside, being that he had the maturity physically and mentally to grasp what we wanted him to do.

I thought we'd be rolling up the rugs for a week or so, but he caught on really fast.  Just take him outside every hour, and praise the heck out of him when he finally does his job.  I say "let's go outside to potty" and when I put him on the grass, I say "Go ahead, go potty".  Whatever combo of words you want to use will work, just use the same ones.  When he goes, "Good boy, go potty!!!"  Then we run back inside and get a treat.

The other "trick" is to not let him have the run of the house yet.  I keep him in eyeball distance, even taking him to the bathroom with my while I shower.  Letting him get into the habit of finding a hiding place is not a good idea!

So basically, this week, we are just getting him used to always doing it outside and not letting him in til he does and keeping him with us to keep an eye on.  He's learning:

1.  I go outside.

2.  I can come back in when I'm done.  But not before.  And she can wait a looooong time!

3.  She really thinks I'm swell when I go!

He's had a few accidents the first days and we just said "Uh, uh!" and picked him up and put him outside.  Boxers especially respond to positive, not negative, reinforcement, I learned.  So I'm doing the "Praise twice, correct once" method I used with my human and dog kids.  Always correct, but praise the heck out of good behavior!

Keeping him with us is important for other training, too.  He's learned Mom gets REAL MAD when he tries to bite a cord, that shoes are not for biting, but toys ARE!  That you can sit with Mom when she's working, but you can't paw at the computer, or try to eat the paper she's drawing on!  And that in this house, dogs are allowed on the couch, but not on the tables.  And that jumping up is bad manners!  Yes, he is exhausting me!!!!  But a good week of one on one is important, so I'll be skipping my auctions and estate sales this week where I buy for my vintage online shop at Etsy.

Thanks for stopping by my art and animal blog!  I'll share artwork here, too, but you can see, I'm all about Sarge right now!!